


A One-Act on Running

by faedemon



Category: Danny Phantom
Genre: Character Study, Denial, Family, Gen, Identity Issues, Introspection, Non-Conversations, Screenplay/Script Format, They/Them Pronouns for Clockwork (Danny Phantom), Trauma, blame, dp side hoes week 2021, heritage, origin
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-07
Updated: 2021-03-12
Packaged: 2021-03-14 06:06:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 6,115
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29912529
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/faedemon/pseuds/faedemon
Summary: The mirror watches Danny impassively. The reflection in it shows what Danny, bent over the sink, hair fallen in front of his eyes, attempts to hide: his precipice. His on-edge self, in the emotional sense and the literal: eyes green where they should be blue, hair black where it should be white. Both. Neither. It is just him in the mirror, and he watches himself with abandon. With nothing. It is him, himself, and the reflection.Danny is trapped in a cycle by some mysterious being, forcing him to face many things he's refused to address, or: faedemon's DP Side Hoes Week 2021.
Relationships: Danny Fenton & Mystery Character
Comments: 61
Kudos: 34





	1. Scene One: The Neglectful Teacher

INT. CASPER HIGH SCHOOL MEN’S ROOM – TIME OF DAY IRRELEVANT

The bathroom is unrealistically dim, one bulb flickering, with the air of a drama film grimy public bathroom. Two people stand by the sinks. DANIEL “DANNY” FENTON (14) braces himself against one, elbows locked, averting his gaze from the mirror. EDWARD LANCER (56) has his arms folded, hip leaning against another sink in an apparent attempt to seem casual. Given that they are the only people in the room, and that there is no exit, he does not succeed.

LANCER

Where’s your hall pass? 

DANNY

( _with a bitter laugh_ ) We’re not even in the hall. 

Beat. 

LANCER

Where’s your bathroom pass? 

Danny shoots Lancer a withering glare from the corner of his eye. Dark hair falls over his forehead, shadowing his gaze, and in the strange light of the room his blue eyes appear almost green. Lancer does not acknowledge this. He is, of course, very good at refusing to acknowledge things. 

DANNY

Don’t you have better things to do than get on my ass? Leave me alone. 

LANCER

It is my duty as your teacher to ensure you’re receiving the proper education. I don’t think that can be accomplished if you’re not even in class, Daniel. 

DANNY

Oh, really? What about the entire classroom you’re neglecting right now, then? 

Lancer raises an eyebrow in that infuriating way of his. 

LANCER

It’s just us. You know that. 

He knows nothing. Danny stands in a bathroom, hands braced on the edge of a filthy sink, with his freshman year English teacher. He stands in the first-floor bathroom of his high school and there is no exit. It is Danny, the tile, and a teacher. Danny, the sink, and the tile. The mirrors, the flickering light, the stalls behind them. The mirrors. The mirrors. 

DANNY

Why aren’t you showing up? 

LANCER

I’m right here, Daniel. 

DANNY

In the mirrors. Why aren’t you showing up? 

Lancer watches Danny impassively. He never cared, of course, why Danny was late to class or skipped it or showed up in the middle. He questioned only the things important to him: where is your homework, Danny? Why are you leaving without my permission? Why are you getting in fights? 

I don’t start fights, Danny wants to say, because he doesn’t. He makes a point not to, with ghosts or people. I don’t get in fights. People fight with me. They keep wanting to fight with me. Please. Please. 

DANNY

You’re not showing up. Tell me— _tell me_ why you’re not showing up. 

LANCER

Where’s your bathroom pass? I don’t remember giving one to you. Why do you keep skipping class, Daniel? 

The mirror watches Danny impassively. The reflection in it shows what Danny, bent over the sink, hair fallen in front of his eyes, attempts to hide: his precipice. His on-edge self, in the emotional sense and the literal: eyes green where they should be blue, hair black where it should be white. Both. Neither. It is just him in the mirror, and he watches himself with abandon. With nothing. It is him, himself, and the reflection. 

LANCER

Why do you keep skipping class, Daniel? 

DANNY

You don’t understand. I have to. 

LANCER

You know I’ll have to call home about this. 

DANNY

Don’t—please, _please_. I have to. You don’t understand. 

LANCER

What will your mother say when she hears you keep disappearing? 

Nothing, Danny thinks. She will say nothing, because she never does, because she hardly even knows when he’s home or when school is or what college her only daughter is planning to attend. She won’t even pick up the phone (he hopes. Danny hopes this, because how would he explain himself? She picks up the phone sometimes. How would he justify all the nitpicky things Lancer is bound to tell her?) because she’s too busy, tucked away in the bowels of the house, that livewire of a home, a living but not breathing thing. 

White hair where it should be black. Blue eyes where they should be green. Danny’s mother knows one daughter and one son but she has two boys, or one boy with two faces, or two boys with one. Danny Fenton is the one that goes home to her, that sleeps in his childhood bed. He is the son she knows; he is not the son that skips class and gets in fights (that people want to fight). 

When MADELINE “MADDIE” FENTON (47) and JACK FENTON (48) take notice of things, they do so in abundance. Danny wouldn’t be able to face it if Maddie picked up the phone and listened, if she put it on speaker and called in Jack. They’d stage an intervention, tug him close, do _something_ that would tear Danny’s world asunder—if only for the few weeks that they’d even remember. If only until unearthly things draw them in again, and it is once more like their children are passing guests in the house, left to fend for themselves. 

DANNY

She won’t care. You’d be wasting your time. 

This both is and is not a lie. Two things that are one. One thing that is two. You know. 

LANCER

You really need to break that habit of lying, Daniel. It will do you no good in the end. 

DANNY

( _murmured_ ) I have to. 

This both is and is not a lie. 

DANNY

Why aren’t you showing up? 

Beat. 

DANNY

Please. 

LANCER

It’s just you. You know that. 

The sink, the tile, the mirror. Him, the stalls, and the red kicks he’s worn since seventh grade. Danny, no exit, and the faucet. The mirror. Danny, Danny, mirror. Danny, Danny, Danny. 

EXIT Lancer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I FIXED THE FORMATTING BABEYYYYYYYY anyway. this fic will be one coherent whole, encompassing all themes and characters from dp side hoes week 2021. if you enjoy it, please leave a comment! i will love you dearly for it.


	2. Scene Two: The Best Friend That Killed You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The room seems more brightly, sickeningly green with every passing moment. Slowly it becomes more and more akin to the split-second before Danny Fenton was alight and became two: the just-before of his death, where he saw the Zone with blue eyes, saw it so endlessly green. Its acid gaze looked back into him, and he felt it beckoning. And then ~~the portal~~ ~~Sam~~ the portal killed him.

INT. FENTONWORKS LABORATORY – TIME OF DAY IRRELEVANT

The ghost portal lights the room in eerie green; the overhead lights are off. Its surface curls in on itself endlessly, enticing, not malevolent but curious, but something alien and uncanny and inviting. In the same breath it is empty metal; there is no portal, only a dark hollow: the house’s chest, concave. Missing a core.

Green but also empty. One thing that is two. You know.

Two people stand before it, lit and not lit by its glow. SAMANTHA “SAM” MANSON (15) gazes into the portal. Danny does not, holding in his hands the rubbery white hazmat suit his parents had made for him. He has done this before.

DANNY

Why am I here again?

Sam either does not hear him or hears something he did not say. Regardless, she does not answer his question.

SAM

Don’t you wonder? If it’s true—if they can get it to work—wouldn’t you want to see what’s on the other side of the portal?

It is his first instinct to answer no, and it is his second to shout yes, _yes, always._ Danny is not a living thing, after all, and the Zone cradles its beloved dead. That vast cemetery, that beauteous resting place. Comfortable. A wide grave. The ectoplasmic whorls of the portal, as they have since his initial rebirth, beckon him home.

DANNY

Where’s Tucker?

SAM

Go in. I’ll take a picture. Ooh, put the suit on too, for authenticity.

Danny puts the suit on. The rubber is cold, and it startles him, pressing the skin of his arms against its cool material—his own suit hasn’t been left unwarmed by his body heat since the first time he did this. For that matter, he has not felt cold almost since then.

SAM

Perfect. Go inside and I’ll take it.

DANNY

I already did this. You already have that picture.

The portal GROANS and its surface seems to glow brighter. The phantom of the empty frame fades until it is gone entirely; this is the _after_ , of course. Danny is already dead.

Sam finally turns to look at Danny, who wears his suit in black, eyes green, hair white. She smiles at him, brighter than he thinks she ever would in real life. This is, of course, not real. You know that.

SAM

You’re so cool, Danny.

DANNY

I’m dead.

SAM

I wish I could be like that. You know—able to save people. It must be wonderful.

DANNY

( _softly_ ) I’m dead.

She’s still smiling.

SAM

Before, I didn’t really have any kind of purpose. Everything I fight for—my veganism, against animal cruelty, against school’s unfair policies—it’s all just me searching. I want to do something that means something. I want to be someone that matters. You know?

I’m not jealous of you but I wish I could be like you sometimes. I live through you. You’re my best friend and I love you and I wish I was you. I want you. I want you.

Most teenagers would be ecstatic when their crush tells them “I want you,” but Danny is not most teenagers and Danny is two people, one of whom is dead, and maybe the Fentons were onto something or maybe Danny’s just doing worse than he knows because Phantom doesn’t feel things the way Fenton used to. Danny is not most teenagers and he hasn’t really had a crush on Sam in a while now. He loves her—of course he does—but he loves her because she’s his friend, because she’s there, because she _knows_. You know?

Danny is not most teenagers and Sam doesn’t want him like dramatic kids in coming-of-age movies want each other. She wants Phantom, or the essence of him, or the ideal of him, or—something. She wants side B of the Phantom that Paulina wants. Or something.

_Want_ has become such a terrible and righteous word.

DANNY

( _not directed at Sam_ ) Why am I here? What happened to Lancer? What was I doing before this?

SAM

I’m happy to fight alongside you, Danny. Forever. You know that.

DANNY

Who’s doing this? Who’s watching?

There are no mirrors in the Fentonworks lab for Danny to look into, and he can’t be sure, but he would guess that if there was one, Sam would not show up in it, as Lancer didn’t. It’s just him. He knows that.

The room seems more brightly, sickeningly green with every passing moment. Slowly it becomes more and more akin to the split-second before Danny Fenton was alight and became two: the just-before of his death, where he saw the Zone with blue eyes, saw it so endlessly green. Its acid gaze looked back into him, and he felt it beckoning. And then ~~the portal~~ ~~Sam~~ the portal killed him.

SAM

Do you blame me?

DANNY

No.

SAM

You’re lying. You really should do something about that lying habit of yours.

DANNY

I’ve never been mad at you for this. Neither of us could have known this is what I would become. I wouldn’t give it up, anyway. I like who I am.

SAM

That’s not what I asked.

DANNY

I know.

SAM

Do you blame me?

DANNY

Of all the things to kill me. A photo op.

SAM

Do you blame me?

DANNY

( _lying_ ) It’s not your fault.

SAM

You know I love you. That scrapbook Jazz keeps—I put stuff in it too, sometimes. I like seeing Phantom in the newspapers. I like having pictures of him. Of you, I mean. I like fighting with you. I don’t mind the scrapes and bruises. My life means something now. I’m happy.

Are you happy, Danny?

He is silent. She’s still smiling.

SAM

Are you happy?

DANNY

You killed me.

SAM

I know. I love you. I’m sorry.

DANNY

You’re lying.

SAM

I love you.

DANNY

Not about that.

SAM

I know.

Beat.

DANNY

Do you? Love me?

SAM

Not like that.

DANNY

Good, I—

Is he crying? He can’t tell. Everything is green.

DANNY

Good.

EXIT Sam.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sam time :] if you read this, i hope very much that you liked it! i love writing shit like this. it's so... i don't know. it's something. you know?
> 
> i'm pretty sure this fic uhhh doesn't quite live up to the essence of what side hoes week is for, considering the side hoes characters featured in this fic aren't exactly Real. but. whatever. i like this fic. i like what i'm making of it, even if it's not Right
> 
> if you enjoyed, please comment! i will love you for it.


	3. Scene Three: The Incessant Minor Antagonist

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Danny can always feel the heartbeat of the portal. He can feel others too, when they open—natural gateways that blink into his radar, little magnets that fizzle away just as quickly. His portal, his birthplace, is a great, yawning opening, forever pulling inward, forever present in the base of his skull like an oath. It begs him home. _Him_ , green or blue, black or white.

INT. NASTY BURGER – TIME OF DAY IRRELEVANT

It is loud as though all the booths are full, miscellaneous chatter echoing through the space. The restaurant has all the air of a bustling venue—even the occasional slight breeze that goes by when a server fast-walks down the aisle. It is also almost completely empty. Only two people are seated, at a booth across from each other, and only one is reflected in the dark windowpanes. WESLEY “WES” WESTON (16) glares at Danny with vitriol. There is a steaming basket of french fries between them. Neither reach out to eat.

WES

I’m onto you, _Phantom_. You can’t keep denying it, not to me.

DANNY

That certainly seems to be a theme here. Denial.

Danny gazes around the restaurant as if looking for something. He even moves as if to get up from the booth, but doesn’t quite manage to slide all the way out, hands stalling from where they fidget with the edge of the table. His reflection in the window gazes back at him, alone. He looks toward Wes again, but looks toward him in the way one looks at a mannequin. A prop.

DANNY

Is that what this is? Some roundabout intervention? I know I’m failing at school and I’ve got some shit to work through with the accident. I know that.

WES

I hate you. I don’t understand why no one else _sees_ it.

Your hair is the same, your face is the same, your fucking _voice_ is the same, even if it’s got some reverb. You didn’t even change your name! Why don’t they realize? Why don’t they know?

DANNY

Believe me, I wonder the same thing. I’m glad they don’t, though. Can’t imagine how annoying it would be to have like a hundred of you running around.

WES

They’re all in denial. They must be. They’re just ignoring it, ignoring _me_. They believe me even if they won’t say it. I’m sure of it.

DANNY

Okay, buddy. You keep telling yourself that.

The imitation of Wes goes silent. Its mouth moves every few moments, as if holding one half of a conversation Danny can’t hear and isn’t part of, but no voice comes out. Its gaze avoids Danny. For no particular reason, Danny feels the impression of a GPS rerouting.

EXT. BACK OF NASTY BURGER – TIME OF DAY IRRELEVANT

One dumpster is askew, the space between it and the back wall of the Nasty Burger just wide enough for a person to fit in. Danny is crouched in it, hands tight around a Fenton Thermos. One hand is gloved. The other is not.

A camera’s flash goes off, and Danny looks up to see Wes standing before him triumphantly, camera in hand, face twisted into an ugly victor’s grin.

WES

Hah! Even if you run away this time, I have proof. You can’t make this disappear, Danny!

Danny stands slowly, hands curled around the thermos like an anchor.

DANNY

I don’t understand. What’s the point of changing the scene?

WES

You just keep _running_. But this time, _this_ time I’ve got you. You’re caught. You know that.

Danny is silent.

WES

Why do you even try to hide? I mean, who wouldn’t want to be known as the town hero!

DANNY

It’s more complicated than that. _You know._

WES

I’d want that. Everyone would love me. They’d probably erect a statue in my honor.

DANNY

You think that, huh? This town doesn’t actually like ghosts. Have you forgotten ~~they’re~~ ~~we’re~~ they’re the ones that beg the need of a hero in the first place?

WES

People love to see themselves in the hero. Their humanity.

DANNY

I’m a ghost.

WES

You’re a boy. You go to high school.

DANNY

I’m dead. I’m nothing like them.

WES

You have an alter ego. The secret identity—the _real_ you—is alive.

DANNY

The real me?

Hair that is black. Eyes that are blue. One thing that could be another, if it chose, if it were needed. You know.

WES

It’s not like Phantom ever shows up when there isn’t a fight to be won. Guns, too, are only used when something needs to be shot.

DANNY

I’m not a _tool_.

WES

Of course not. You’re human.

Neither of his hands are gloved. Wes no longer holds a camera. They are two boys, high school classmates, fucking around behind a fast food place because what else is there to do when you’re in high school and you’re two boys looking to kill time? They’re human. Humans do stupid shit like kick dumpsters.

This is mostly a lie.

DANNY

I don’t—we’re both _me_.

WES

We?

DANNY

We—I—

Beat.

DANNY

( _trailing off_ ) I…

WES

Phantom disappears after every fight. I don’t care about him. I want everyone to know it’s _you._

DANNY

He disappears…

Danny can always feel the heartbeat of the portal. He can feel others too, when they open—natural gateways that blink into his radar, little magnets that fizzle away just as quickly. His portal, his birthplace, is a great, yawning opening, forever pulling inward, forever present in the base of his skull like an oath. It begs him home. _Him_ , green or blue, black or white.

One thing that is two. You know.

DANNY

It’s just me.

Wes is silent.

DANNY

Sam calls it an alter ego, too. I put him away and he keeps disappearing? I’m always him. He’s always me.

WES

I don’t believe you.

DANNY

What?

WES

You never come home. I don’t believe you. I hate you.

Lancer becomes Sam becomes Wes becomes Sam.

SAM

I love you.

Becomes Wes.

WES

I hate you. You’re lying. You really need to do something about that lying habit.

Danny has been behind the Nasty Burger before, but only in moments, snatches of urgency. Transform here or get up from being thrown here or run or fly through here. He has not observed this place enough to know where the spots of gum ground into the concrete are, or which dumpster has what dent, or whether the big brown stain next to the employee entrance is blood or sauce. He imagines that what he sees now is what his mind would create if he dreamed of this place: likely scenery, untrue.

DANNY

It hasn’t even been a year yet. I’m not lying.

WES

You’re lying.

DANNY

I’m not lying. I’m confused. I don’t know anything. I’m dead.

Hair that is black eyes that are green mirrors Danny mirrors Danny. He’s disappearing. He’s falling. He’s being eaten.

WES

Why haven’t you come home?

DANNY

I’m still alive. Please.

WES

You’re dead.

DANNY

I don’t know how to be this.

` 

Hair that is white. Eyes that are blue. Two things, one body, one child electrocuted and still screaming. The Wail coils in the lungs, ever-shouting, pressurizing. He is dying. He is in the process of dying.

WES

You just keep ~~running~~ ~~disappearing~~ running. I can’t catch up to you.

DANNY

I have to keep my secret. I have to.

WES

Why? You’re dead.

Is he? How is a child supposed to be both? One thing that is two. Two things that should never have been one.

He is not crying. He wishes he was.

EXIT Wes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WES!!!! this fulfills my wes quota for the year. anyway. the story, the why-is-this-happening of it all, begins to take shape! i honestly really love this story, i love writing it, and i'm super super exciting for where it's heading.
> 
> thank you for reading!! if you enjoyed it, please leave a comment! they mean a lot to me <3


	4. Scene Four: The Impassive Watcher

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Danny’s first birthplace was a hospital, where his mother delivered him before her work had completely took over their lives, where she held him and looked at him. She looked at him relentlessly then—he’s seen the pictures—just watching, just taking in what she had made.
> 
> His second birthplace was both much colder and much, much hotter. His second birthplace was the portal, sort of, and the Zone, sort of. His second birthplace was lightning, and in that moment his friends had turned away, blinded, and he was not looked at.

INT. THE CLOCK TOWER – ALL TIMES

Clocks tick incessantly, none in sync with each other, though the sound is not annoying so much as it demands presence, attention. This central room of the tower seems far too wide not to echo. Despite this, it doesn’t, swallowing the aftershocks of each sound, leaving everything to ring out once and loud and honest. Within the tower, each moment is absolute.

CLOCKWORK (ETERNAL) is not looking at their visitor; rather they watch one of the looking-gears, which displays a vision incomprehensible to Danny: bright, white light and nothing else. He waits for a while, watching Clockwork’s back, but they make no moves save for the regular transition of their body between ages.

DANNY

This isn’t actually you, right? You’re not throwing me through some freaky time loops?

Clockwork turns, finally looking at Danny. Their eyes betray nothing, which is already clue enough—the real Clockwork loves to give Danny hints.

CLOCKWORK

Do you think your becoming was accidental?

DANNY

I—what?

CLOCKWORK

Do you think it was an accident? Do you think fate meant for your hand to slip, and for your ~~life~~ ~~afterlife~~ existence to become what it is today?

DANNY

Nothing would ever have meant for this.

The corner of Clockwork’s mouth ticks up in a smile.

CLOCKWORK

You’re a hero, Danny.

This hurts worse than Danny would have expected it to. Lancer and Sam and Wes—they were all strange and wrong, Sam especially so, but Clockwork is so _particular_. Danny’s experiences with Clockwork are his and his alone; this was not a large-scale battle broadcast for the public to see. This is personal. Intimate.

No one should know what Clockwork means to him, so why are they here? Why is their head tilting so familiarly; why is the clock tower so correct? Why this? Why this specific torment?

DANNY

How many more times are you going to put me through this? I’m tired.

CLOCKWORK

I know. But you’re a hero.

DANNY

That doesn’t mean anything. There’s no cosmic purpose in that. I became this, and then I chose to do what I do.

Clockwork tilts their head vaguely. Knowingly.

DANNY

I do this to defend myself, to defend Amity Park! It’s not—it’s not _righteous_. I didn’t die to be a hero.

CLOCKWORK

And yet you enjoy filling the role.

DANNY

I don’t—why does it matter? Please, enlighten me. Why does any of this matter? You keep dragging me through these awful, fucked up loops, forcing me to say things I don’t want to admit, and for what? Just to fuck with me?

Lancer becomes Sam becomes Wes becomes Clockwork becomes Sam.

SAM

I love you.

Becomes Wes.

WES

I hate you.

Becomes Clockwork.

CLOCKWORK

You’re a hero. I’m so proud of you, Danny.

Danny lets out a frustrated, animalistic groan, kicking the clock nearest to him. It does nothing but make his foot hurt, and he bites his lip in effort to ignore the pain.

DANNY

I don’t understand you. What the hell do you _want?_

CLOCKWORK

You really should visit more often. It gets boring when my only company are the Observants. They can be quite irritating at times; you’re rather more lively than them, though I suppose a bit of crankiness is to be expected when you’ve been sapient for nearly all of time.

Danny sighs, fed up.

DANNY

I don’t like being in the Zone too often and, no offense, but being here doesn’t exactly bring back pleasant memories.

Clockwork frowns, and Danny knows they’re not real, but the expression makes his gut plummet even still. The feeling of disappointing an authority figure has always been crushing.

CLOCKWORK

Time has many branching possibilities. All of them happen and are happening and have happened. You could have lived just as easily as you died, and you might have died as easily as you lived.

Two things. One thing. Both, neither.

DANNY

Yeah. There’s a reason my friends and I call it ‘The Accident.’

CLOCKWORK

It was not chance. It was always going to happen. It just happened to be you.

DANNY

( _with a bitter chuckle_ ) ‘It’s just me.’

CLOCKWORK

Yes. You know that.

Beat.

CLOCKWORK

Why, then, do you try so hard to be the Danny that lived?

DANNY

I don’t know how to be this.

Green that is blue, black that is white—you know.

CLOCKWORK

You need to let it in. You need to come home.

DANNY

I go home every day.

Clockwork smiles again, gently, but the pit in Danny’s gut doesn’t ease. He’s never done well with pity, after all.

CLOCKWORK

You know.

DANNY

( _whispered_ ) Of course I do.

Danny’s first birthplace was a hospital, where his mother delivered him before her work had completely took over their lives, where she held him and looked at him. She looked at him relentlessly then—he’s seen the pictures—just watching, just taking in what she had made.

His second birthplace was both much colder and much, much hotter. His second birthplace was the portal, sort of, and the Zone, sort of. His second birthplace was lightning, and in that moment his friends had turned away, blinded, and he was not looked at.

These becomings are both his and not his. Danny Fenton was born first, Danny Phantom born second. Two birthplaces, one boy, or one boy and one life and one death, or—something. One boy who lived and is meandering slowly, teasingly toward true death.

DANNY

Everyone wants to fight with me. I only ever met you because you needed me to fight. Why should I go? What would be better?

CLOCKWORK

Not all siblings get along.

I’m proud of you, Danny. You’re doing so well.

DANNY

Please.

CLOCKWORK

Is Fentonworks any different, really?

DANNY

Please.

CLOCKWORK

They fight with you too.

DANNY

They don’t _know_.

CLOCKWORK.

Of course they don’t. You really should break that lying habit of yours, Danny.

DANNY

I have to. You don’t understand.

CLOCKWORK

You can’t be him if you’re still the secret identity.

DANNY

I can’t. Please.

Clockwork just keeps _smiling_ at him, and the clock tower is perfect, too perfect, unlike the hazy unreality of those fake places he’d been shown from Amity. All of Clockwork’s inflections are just right, even if the words are wrong. All of the clocks tick in perfect time. Behind Clockwork, the gear showing that bright light keeps glowing.

CLOCKWORK

I’d really like it if you visited more often. It’s much more lively than watching things play out in the timestream.

Behind them, the light is familiar. Ever-screaming.

A mother’s most important moment with her child is birth.

DANNY

( _weakly_ ) I don’t understand.

Clockwork _smiles_. It is not real. Somehow, still, it is kind.

CLOCKWORK

I know.

EXIT Clockwork.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> clockwork!
> 
> this is probably the most vague of the chapters so far. i'm trying to dance around things without making them too inscrutable; hopefully by the end, when the answer is laid out, these chapters can be looked back on and reread with new understanding. that's the intention, anyway.
> 
> if you liked this chapter, please do leave a comment! they mean a lot to me.


	5. Scene Five: The Nagging Sister

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jazz grins at this, mischievous, as if Danny has referenced some old joke of theirs. Maybe he has, or maybe this is a joke she knows and he doesn’t, or maybe this is a joke he doesn’t know he’s making yet. Maybe it was never about joking at all. Maybe the humor is in the uneasy truth of it.

INT. AMITY PARK HOSPITAL WAITING ROOM – TIME OF DAY IRRELEVANT

In the corner, a bead maze and a tub of blocks and a toy car’s race track spill out from a low table onto the floor. Seats line the walls and make up an island in the center of the room. Drooping potted plants mark the sides of doorways and flank the reception desk. No one waits, but for the two expected participants.

JASMINE “JAZZ” FENTON (17) sits primly on the edge of one of the hard plastic seats. Next to her, though leaning on the opposite armrest, sits Danny. Neither of them look at each other.

JAZZ

( _with an audible smile_ ) You always were hard to wrangle.

I think it was Tucker’s influence; he was already afraid of the doctor when you guys were six or seven, though I’m sure you remember that. He would run screaming whenever it was time for a checkup, and we couldn’t find him for almost five hours when he had to go in to get a corrective hernia surgery. Do you remember? You ended up hiding from checkups just like him.

DANNY

I remember.

JAZZ

You haven’t been to a checkup this year.

DANNY

No, I haven’t.

Of course he hasn’t. His pulse is so slow he should be in a coma and his body temperature is well below what it should be. Even if his parents are willing to ignore his blips on their instruments as ectocontamination, a doctor fainting from shock when they touch him wouldn’t go unnoticed. It’s just not safe.

In his periphery, Jazz’s orange hair swings as she turns to look at him. The fluorescent light doesn’t do much for the color, but Danny is vividly reminded of the times they would lie in the living room together beneath the big window, letting the sunlight hit them, watching Jazz’s hair color the room orange. Fire. Light.

JAZZ

You should really be making sure you’re healthy, little brother. I worry about you.

DANNY

This is cruel.

JAZZ

I care about you. I want you to be safe.

DANNY

You understand that this is cruel, right? Waving these phantoms in front of me, giving me whiplash with all of the things they say. ‘I love you,’ ‘I hate you,’ ‘I’m proud of you.’ Stop it. Please, just stop it.

JAZZ

I care about you. I know I’m a little overbearing sometimes, but I’m just trying to make sure you’re okay.

DANNY

I don’t know who you _are_!

He finally turns to look at her, or what pretends to be her, and finds her with her mouth hanging open, eyes blank in the human sense, but expressive all the same, expressive undefinable. Danny understands what he sees only in an instinctual way. Only in the notion that this is not Jazz, and it will not hurt him.

JAZZ

I’m your family, Danny.

You don’t talk to me as much as you used to. I miss you.

DANNY

I don’t trust you.

She pouts. It’s a ridiculous expression on something wearing his sister’s face.

JAZZ

I miss you. I care about you.

Danny remains silent.

JAZZ

You’ve got a lot going on in that head of yours, don’t you? You can always talk to me if you need to get it out. I want to help. I don’t want you to be hurting on your own.

DANNY

I’m not hurting.

She smiles at him, and it is both pity and love, not like Clockwork’s smile and not like Sam’s.

JAZZ

You’re lying. You know that.

He knows that.

There are no mirrors in this waiting room. Danny cannot look into one for reassurance, to observe himself sitting alone. Safe. Alone.

JAZZ

I would never hurt you, Danny.

DANNY

( _dryly_ ) You’ve trapped me in the Fenton Thermos like four times now.

He meets her eyes again.

DANNY

It doesn’t matter if it’s intentional. It still hurts.

Sam and Clockwork and Jazz. Needles in the heart. Lancer and Wes too, he supposes—pieces of his life, irrefutable ones, even if they aren’t nice.

JAZZ

I’m sorry.

DANNY

Are you?

JAZZ

Yes. No.

Two things that are one. One thing that is two. Both and neither and spinning and spinning and spinning.

A lie is never a simple thing. Danny hides himself from his parents out of love, even if it is unkind. Here he sees visions of people from his life. Love. Unkindness. You know.

DANNY

Quite the pair we make, huh? Can’t ever manage to make up our minds.

Jazz grins at this, mischievous, as if Danny has referenced some old joke of theirs. Maybe he has, or maybe this is a joke she knows and he doesn’t, or maybe this is a joke he doesn’t know he’s making yet. Maybe it was never about joking at all. Maybe the humor is in the uneasy truth of it.

JAZZ

Few things do.

DANNY

Cheers to that.

She isn’t perfect. There’s a fuzziness to her, and she’s not real, but she still evokes _Jazz_. Big sister. Danny sees her and finds her beloved, and listens and finds her words kind, and really—almost all of the dialogue so far has been kind. Lancer was forceful and Wes bitter, but in all iterations, this ghost or person or something has not hurt him.

Gently he is unravelling. Gently it tugs the old things, the buried things, out from the coiled web they’d been trapped in. Danny is fraying, and he feels himself flicker between colors like static on an old television set. Lovingly his antennae are maneuvered just right, just back into place.

DANNY

I don’t trust you.

JAZZ

I know.

DANNY

Who are you?

JAZZ

You know.

Does he?

DANNY

I don’t know anything. It hasn’t even been a year.

She reaches out to rest her hand on his arm, rubbing her thumb like she used to do when he was a kid. This is the first time any of the visions have touched him, but he is wearing his hazmat suit, and he cannot feel it.

JAZZ

You know. You’ll understand. I promise.

He looks at her, eyes almost a plea.

DANNY

Promise?

JAZZ

( _with love_ ) Promise.

EXIT Jazz.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello hello hello! another day another chapter. first and foremost: i changed the title! from "A One-Act on Disappearances" to "A One-Act on Running" because it was a better fit. i'm writing this fic as the week goes on, so it's not surprising i had to change it, haha.
> 
> i think i'm going to try to figure out how to make my normal productivity work like this—i've been writing these chapters once a day this week for the side hoes event, and fulfilling the event is what's motivating me to do it, but i think i'm going to try to translate this sit-down-and-write mentality to uhh.... every time else..? we'll see.
> 
> anyway! if you enjoyed this chapter, please do leave a comment. they mean a lot to me. :)


	6. Scene Six: The Distant Aunt

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Her face breaks into something like grief, and it’s the truest expression Danny has seen on any of these falsehoods. She scoots a bit closer to him, but unlike Jazz, doesn’t reach out to touch.

EXT. ALICIA’S CABIN – TIME OF DAY IRRELEVANT

Bushes and trees rustle. Grass would too, if there was any where they stood. Instead, dry dirt lies there, vegetation worn away by tire treads and bootprints, shaping a jagged path up to ALICIA GALE’S (49) sagging front porch.

Danny lingers in the middle of the unpaved drive. A ways off, Alicia waits on the steps, watching him. He has been here maybe three times in his life, and this place might be the haziest of all the visions he’s seen so far—not in the literal sense, but in the way that almost everything seems filled-in. Detail where he never could have drawn it.

ALICIA

Hey, kid. Come for a visit?

DANNY

Dragged into one, more like.

She smiles sharply, feistily. Danny suspects that if he saw her more, she might have been his favorite relative. For lack of any other action, he approaches, hazmat boots crunching the ground as he walks. When he reaches the steps, Alicia waves him up, and together they sit on her rickety porch swing.

ALICIA

Yeah, you never did like the long drives up here. Your sister hated it too. I’m sure Mads would’ve liked to visit more, but she was always so busy and hated stressing you guys out more than she had to.

DANNY

Why not visit us instead? Why do I have to be the one to go?

ALICIA

Oh, nothin’ short of the apocalypse will get me out of this neck of the woods, nephew. I don’t leave.

DANNY

Figured.

This—all of this—has been about him. What he could do, should do, isn’t doing but must and is doing but mustn’t. A long list of demands through six different mouthpieces, and he can’t even be sure this will be the last. He’s not even sure what the demands _are_ yet, all vague and throbbing.

He knows these things: he is here alone. He is two things and one thing and both and neither. This is not real. It loves him. He is caught. He has not gone home.

None of it coalesces into something he can see or comprehend. He is dead. He is living. He is dying and spinning and alone and loved. It, kindly, loves him. It begs him home.

DANNY

You must have a thing for redheads. Wes, Jazz, and now Aunt Alicia? Will I be seeing Mom next?

She raises an eyebrow, then barks out a laugh.

ALICIA

Now that wouldn’t give quite the right impression, would it?

Birth. Motherhood.

DANNY

Wouldn’t it?

ALICIA

( _with a snort_ ) Look at me. I’m not Maddie.

DANNY

You could be. You were Jazz.

Family, or something like it.

ALICIA

Oh, kid.

Becomes Jazz.

JAZZ

I care about you.

Becomes Clockwork.

CLOCKWORK

I wish you’d visit more often.

Becomes Alicia.

ALICIA

You know?

Danny knows nothing. He’s known nothing, and he’s lost, spinning. He is alone here. He is caught. He is loved.

DANNY

( _weakly_ ) What?

ALICIA

I miss you and your sister. I remember when you were just little tykes, begging to be scooped up and held. I’ve never been all that good with kids, but oh, I loved ya. More’n the sun and moon. I know we haven’t seen each other in a bit, but I still do.

Maddie loved you both too.

DANNY

Loved?

Alicia frowns.

ALICIA

Loved. Loves. Something like that.

Two things that can do nothing but contradict, and still, somehow, sometimes come together to be one. Loving someone and hurting them despite it, or because of it. Loving someone for what you want them to be. Loving someone for what you’ve convinced yourself they are. Loving someone for what you had loved, before. Loving an idea. A phantom—or its corpse.

White hair, green eyes. Black hair, blue eyes. Two things that can’t be one under the same roof. You know.

ALICIA

I’m not Maddie.

DANNY

You’re not Aunt Alicia, either.

ALICIA

No. But I’m family.

Birthplace, ever-screaming.

ALICIA

Are you beginning to understand?

DANNY

I don’t want to. I’m not welcome.

Her face breaks into something like grief, and it’s the truest expression Danny has seen on any of these falsehoods. She scoots a bit closer to him, but unlike Jazz, doesn’t reach out to touch.

ALICIA

I miss you. Come home.

DANNY

They all fight with me.

ALICIA

Not all siblings get along.

DANNY

It hurts. Don’t you understand that?

She doesn’t. He knows this.

DANNY

It still hurts.

ALICIA

I’m sorry.

DANNY

You’re lying.

She isn’t, but it doesn’t matter much, because she doesn’t understand in the first place. Falsehoods and comprehension. Two things. Two things.

ALICIA

I’m sorry.

EXIT Alicia.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i keep being tempted to type out in the notes exactly what i'm trying to do in these chapters, haha. anyway—i hope, as "alicia" hinted, things are becoming clearer for you readers as well. and if not, more clarification approaches! i changed the expected number of chapters from seven to nine a few days ago because side hoes week itself will not be enough to bring this fic to the conclusion it needs. those two post-week chapters should clear things up.
> 
> one more side hoes prompt to go! thank you to everyone who's been following the fic so far, and if you liked this chapter, do leave a comment. they mean a lot to me. :]


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